Zionists Call for “exodus from Poland;” Government Agrees to Ease Border Controls

August 23, 1946

Warsaw (Aug. 22)

Polish Zionist organizations have decided to proclaim an “Exodus from Poland” in view of the persistent anti-Semitic violence throughout the country, which is being intensified as opposition parties launch their campaigns for the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

In revealing their decision to the government, the Zionist leaders asked the authorities to open the frontiers to Jews desiring to leave the country. The government has acceded to their request and has promised to instruct border guards to permit Jews to cross the frontiers freely within a specified one-month period.

Jewish Communists are opposing the exodus of Jews, while the Jewish Socialist Bund decided to give its members a free hand. The decision of the Zionist groups has not been made public either in the Jewish or in the Polish press, but Jews in Lodz and in other cities somehow got wind of it before it was even disclosed to the government, and thousands of them are now making ready to emigrate.

AUTHORITIES WILLING TO PERMIT EXIT OF 3,000 JEWS DAILY

The Polish authorities indicated that they would be willing to permit 3,000 Jews to leave daily during the one-month period. This would mean that 90,000 Jews could emigrate.

While no Jewish group is conducting organized emigration of adults from here, institutions caring for Jewish children are organizing units of Jewish orphans and are sending them, under special supervision, to various frontiers from where they cross into neighboring countries, for a temporary stay.

In Lodz, the largest Jewish center in Poland, groups of Jews can be seen passing through the streets with knapsacks on their shoulders, all walking in the direction of the Polish frontiers. Many Jews are giving up their jobs and leaving all their possessions and dwellings behind them, in order to reach the frontier in the shortest possible time

ZIONIST TRAINING CAMPS DISSOLVE; ALL MEMBERS EMIGRATE

Many of the Zionist training camps, most of which were in Lodz, are being dissolved, their members either having already crossed the frontiers into neighboring countries, or are getting ready to cross these frontiers.

A group of thirty Jewish writers and artists is leaving the country within a few days. They received visas permitting their immigration into Italy and other countries. Most of them had been repatriated from the Soviet Union during the last few months.

The Central Jewish Committee in Warsaw and its local branches throughout the country are unaffected by the mass-exodus. Leaders of the committee are continuing their work of planning economic relief for those Jews who may remain in Poland.